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Thursday, 18 August 2011

There's been significant progress made on some of the projects since the last time I wrote about our cart development competition, so I thought it would be a good time to post an update.

First up, we have the submission of a near complete game - 'Rong - Ron's Pong' from the recently revived Software Of Sweden group. There's not a huge amount I can say about this one other than it's a solid 2-player Pong game with some nice graphics and sound, and there's a preview build available from CSDB.

It would be nice to see paddle support and a one-player mode added, but it's looking good so far and it's great to have SOS back in the scene.

Wide Pixel Games emailed me yesterday to notify me of the status of 'Fairy Well', an intriguing looking entry with some very nice visuals - check the screenshot montage below (click for a larger version). I'm looking forward to hearing more about this, and my daughter is particulary excited about the prospect of playing a game about fairies on 'my old computer'. ;)

JCB and The Mean Team are still remaining tight-lipped about their project, and I *may* be barking up completely the wrong tree here, but STE'86 recently posted news of an amazing looking WIP Space Invaders port up on the Lemon64 forum, with JCB handling the code. Just a co-incidence? I hope not!

Kerm1t from Mirage also sent me a message about his entry, stating that "the game shall be be about driving, but no details fixed." Again, it's great that there is so much variety in this competition - hopefully I'll get more info on this project soon.

Another welcome addition to the competition is Enthusi and Ptoing's Heartlight 64, another game currently available in preview form from CSDB. Martin has advised that he can't promise to have it finished in time, but will at least try to meet the deadline.

Paulko64 has confirmed that his entry will NOT be anything to do with his current VVVVVV port, but will instead be a conversion of another popular indie game (with full permission granted from the developer). My guess is that it might be a port of Super Crate Box by Vlambeer, as their massively popular single-screen shmup/platformer/collect 'em up should be possible within the limitations of the competition, but again I'm quite possibly completely wrong. Whatever his release ends up as, I have a suspicion that it's going to be rather fantastic.

Jamie Howard has been sending me regular updates regarding his Reactor Rescue project, and recently iLkke has stepped forward to assist me with the graphics. The game itself is already in a playable state, with most of the logic in place - the little player character can now land on each level, repair the reactors and take off seemlessly. All that remains is the introduction of the robots, aliens and level design before the game will be in a proper preview state.

Last but not least, Richard Bayliss has been very active in the development of his Woolly Jumper sequel to Sheepoid. He's posted a number of videos up on his blog and sent me some really amazing looking graphics (which I'm sadly not permitted to share here yet). From the video footage it looks as though it is progressing nicely, with the core gameplay already in place.

Another update will follow soon, probably after the official release of Cosine's Blok Copy next month.